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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22547341">Perennial</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassa_of_the_fans/pseuds/Berd_Alert'>Berd_Alert (Cassa_of_the_fans)</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nobodyhasblindedme/pseuds/excessThinking'>excessThinking (Nobodyhasblindedme)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Body Horror, F/F, Fae &amp; Fairies, M/M, Magic, Multi, Nymphs &amp; Dryads, Physical Abuse, Rape/Non-con Elements</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 15:21:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,090</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22547341</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassa_of_the_fans/pseuds/Berd_Alert, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nobodyhasblindedme/pseuds/excessThinking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you lose yourself in the woods but that's fine. </p><p>Something is sure to find you.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dave Strider/Dirk Strider, Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Perennial</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Literally an (ongoing) rp from the discord server I and the co-author are in specifically for roleplaying the strilondes. Some really good stuff comes out of there, and while YET ANOTHER OF OUR rps is being edited so as to make it a workable story, this one is really more just for fun and fantasy. Some interesting worldbuilding happens later, and what can we say. We just like obscure faeries, ok?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was past suppertime. </p><p>Dave was sure of that. The sun was casting the sky in brilliant reds and oranges and on the opposite, equally distant horizon, slowly draping itself in a blanket of indigos and violets. It was deep fall, and under the canopy of amber and gold and maroon, and all those fancy names for colors Dave couldn’t pronounce, he could feel what little warmth there was left of the day begin to leech under the failing light. </p><p>And Dave was hopelessly lost. </p><p>The path was this way...right? Or, no, that log was *definitely* familiar, he was sure.He couldn’t be mad if Dave wasn’t back by now if he just took a little longer to do so, right? He was on the right trail! He just. Had to find it. </p><p>Dave sniffled, feeling the raised and bluing patch on his cheek when he wiped away some dirt. Jut dirt. Nothin’ else. </p><p>The sky was starting to get dark and the autumn chill was seeping through his ill fitting clothes. He shivered and sniffed again. His stomach growled.</p><p>He was so hungry. Bro hadn't let him eat that morning, and now, as night came on, he was starving and lost. His chest and back ached, and the spot under his eye hurt to touch. </p><p>Something hot and wet fell onto his cheeks. He sniffed and rubbed away the tears, but they were coming too fast now to hide. He crouched down in the underbrush and started to cry. He couldn't help it. Bro would have smacked him if he'd been there to see this. It was pathetic.</p><p> The tears irritated his cheeks, bruised as the one was, and the bugs biting caused harder rivulets of frustrated, tired wetness to drip down to his chin. Dave watched the droplets stain darker patches on his jeans, a size too big. At least he was growing into them. Slowly. </p><p>Heaving out a sigh, Dave tilted his head back to the sky again. Light  was waning really fast now. If..maybe if he got home before all the light was totally gone it would count as passing the test? </p><p>Dave let himself wallow for a few minutes more. What was the point, really? Even if he passed this little test of his own in getting home, there was no telling if Bro would in fact let him eat tonight. </p><p>Little fuck-ups with their heads in the clouds didn’t deserve to heat his hard-earned food. </p><p>But he couldn’t stay out here. There was like, bears and probably wolves and shit. And baring that, he’d still have to find a way home in the morning. </p><p>Pick a direction. And walk. </p><p>He pulled himself to his feet and continued his trudge through the woods. As the sun disappeared, it got harder and harder to see where he was going, and he fell down more and more often. By the fifth time he landed on his face in the dirt, he was done. He curled up on the ground and did his best to fend off the mosquitoes. The Earth was damp under him, and the tears still spilling from his eyes only helped to turn the patch under his head to mud. </p><p>He laid there on the ground for a long time. Maybe if he closed his eyes and went to sleep, he'd wake up somewhere else. </p><p>As his eyes were slipping closed though, he caught a glimpse of something moving between the trees. Instantly, he was on his feet. More movement, a flash of orange.</p><p>"Who's there?" He called. </p><p>He felt stupid for doing it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. What if it was a wild animal? Or worse, his Brother, come to punish him for not coming home?</p><p>Nothing moved. </p><p>There was no wind down here, under the arching, enclosing trees. Dave winced and put a hand over his stomach - the startle had caused him to tense, and it hurt more now. </p><p>He kept staring at the place he’d seen the flash of gold though, and started walking again. Slow-going, coltish six year old legs tripping over branches and rocks and creeper vines growing this way and that. Difficult to navigate in the day, impossible in the black of night. </p><p>Something broke a twig a few feet behind him. </p><p>Dave was catapulting himself forward, scream dying in the back of his throat. His breath was taken in just minutes of bolting. </p><p>An unluckily-baggy pants leg undid itself from the careful tucking and rolling he’d done this morning, and Dave was careening downward in the dark, the wet on his face warm and flowing as his lip erupted in pain. </p><p>Something touched his back. </p><p>Yellow eyes. </p><p>Two, huge eyes blinked down at him like bus headlights, glaring and too-bright in the darkness. Dave waited for the inevitable as he forgot how the breath, chest and face and stomach clenching and readying, ready for the swipe that was going to come, the scream, the teeth, probably. He was dead. He was dead, already, there really were huge beasts in the woods, and Bro had - had left him to the. Tears dried in the old tracks of  those previous down his face, spilling and clearing dirt and blood away. </p><p>A hand, smooth but oddly hard, the texture like nothing Dave had ever felt before, cradled his face, cupping his chin while ling, nimble fingers carded throuhg the hair at his ear. </p><p>A thumb wiped away a tear. </p><p>Something whistled, like breeze over a cut reed but so low it rattled his chest. Another swipe, another fear gone. </p><p>What.</p><p>He swallowed, trying to dislodge the sudden lump in his throat. He brought his hands up to rest on this... Person's? They seemed person-y enough- hands. They were smooth, but had a definite texture, like the pretty wood carvings his uncle had brought him to see once.  He sniffled pathetically and closed his eyes. </p><p>Something, strange, started to happen. A wave of calm washed over him, and with it came the impression of a question. Dave looked up.</p><p>"I'm. I'm lost. I can't find my way home. Can you help me?"</p><p>The eyes tilted. First to one side, then the other. </p><p>Then blinked. </p><p>Dave’s own widened as, in the tiny moment before the luminous circles closed, the lowered light was enough for him to see the outline of a - a face. Large enough to fit the eyes, so much bigger then Dave’s own, and sharp at the corners. The familiar shape of leaves were highlighted around the head, before being lost to the dark, and then light again as those eyes opened once more to blind him with gold. </p><p>Dave twitched as a thought struck him. The words plucked out of his head like worms from a bucket and cast into the water on a line to fish his mind for a response. </p><p>
  <i>Where is home.</i>
</p><p>Where. Where was it. How did he get home? </p><p>Dave shook as these thoughts kept bouncing between his ears. He didn’t He knew how to get home from town, mostly. He knew how to get to the neighbor’s from home. He didn’t. </p><p>He. He couldn’t..</p><p>Another firm hand came down from somewhere unknown and held the other side of his face. </p><p><i>Alright.</i> </p><p>The hands left, and for a moment, and Dave was suspended alone in the dark in the woods, no one, no one was going to help him, he was <i>so alone-</i></p><p>An arm came around behind his back, scooping under his knees from behind. </p><p>And then they were moving. </p><p>The air felt even cooler against Dave's cheek as they went, the body beneath him pumping in great strides over hidden paths Dave couldn't see. Faster, faster then anything. He was..suddenly very glad it was holding him so closely. Even with one arm, it felt more secure then anything right now. Dave wouldn't fall. </p><p>This thing wouldn't let him. </p><p>God, they were flying, they had to be. No sound came from the flittering footsteps through the shadows between the trees. No twig snapped or leaf rustled. Dave was momentarily gripped with fright, or maybe excitement, the two mingling in his middle queasily. </p><p>As they passed like ghosts through a clearing,  the fresh moonlight cast it's light on the face of the unknown. The warm colors made pale in the light, the way the shadows played over skin that Dave wasn't so sure was skin. Noseless, the ears arching into branches of curving leaves he knew the shape of, the same he was curling his fingers into at the shoulders. </p><p>Alien. Unknown. Frightening. </p><p>They blitzed through the clearing in a breath though, and the shape of the being was lost to the night again.</p><p>Dave closed his eyes. It was the  easiest thing to do, with the strange alien thoughts in his head and the hunger twisting his guts.</p><p>He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he sees is the edge of the woods. He could see the house where his Bro lived, and the little shed to the side where he slept. The lights were out. Bro was asleep. He hadn't even thought of coming for him. He wasn't surprised, but it still made his chest ache.</p><p>The yard was quiet. Dave thinks it's a good thing Bro didn't see the need for a guard dog, or else this might go even worse. The being seems to stall at the edge of the woods, and Dave is suddenly struck with how small the trees around it is, compared to the absolutely huge ones hed left behind. It toes at the grass in the yard, eyes narrowing a bit, before evidently deciding something in it's head and stepping forward. </p><p>Towards the darkened, silent house.</p><p>"No!" Dave cries out, harsh and quiet in the night air. He can't go into the house, who knows what Bro would do if he caught him there.</p><p>"Not the house, please." He looks up at the creature, expression pleading.</p><p>The being was caught up short, and looked with wide eyes down at their little charge, footsteps halting in the shaggy grass. It blinked, and Dave thought it might have been confusion. More thoughts that didn't belong to him swirled about his head. </p><p><i>Is this not home? Perhaps they were wrong to think humans lived so?</i> The words, and wordless query was like a bass drum beating Dave's skull, maybe without meaning to.</p><p>Dave shakes his head quickly. </p><p>"No, it's home... just. My Bro doesn't let me in when it's late. He's asleep. I live in the shed over there." He points at the little shack, framed by two apple trees. </p><p>"I can walk now, too."</p><p>Something like amusement seeped into the corners of Dave's head at the last few words. It felt..similar to how his uncle laughed at his jokes, called him 'sport' even when Dave knew he knew he hated the nickname that was always ironic anyway. There was reluctance though - a lot of it. So much that Dave was almost frozen in the hold as it gripped his mind like a vice. The arm tightened, but with the small sound that escaped his throat, it seeped to snap the spell. </p><p>Yes, alright, he could walk, if he so insisted. </p><p>The creature gave a glance at the house, and kneeled, allowing Dave freedom.</p><p>He carefully rolled up his jeans and started towards the little shack. He entirely expected that whatever the creature was, it wouldn't follow him. He was halfway to the shack when he glanced back. The creature was only a few steps behind him, fully illuminated by the moonlight.</p><p>The creature really was just..so tall. Slightly gangly limbs swayed a little in the small breeze kicked up in the open yard, leaves crowning their head and shoulders moving, but no rustling to be heard. The face was much more human then Dave had thought at first. A little. Funnily enough, in the light of the moon the eyes seemed to glow less, and Dave could see the rings of amber and gold and honey and al shades in between, darkening from the light center. Light played across it's..bark? It hadn't really felt like it though - Dave's fingers rub together at the memory almost like hard, smooth leather, or unpolished wood. It was..fluid, though. Moving like clay molded. </p><p>Whenever he took a step, it did - well, when he walked far enough away to warrant it, the creature's single pace like, a whole five of Dave's. </p><p>When he got within range of the shed, he looked back again, half-wondering in exhaustion if it was planning on squeezing in with him or something, but it wasn't. It had stopped by one of the small, gnarled apple trees that Bro had said came with the property. The fruit they bore wasn't even good, always small and sour and worm-eaten, and the boy's stomach lamented with him. The being was bending closer, eyes narrowed even farther then they had at the sight of the yard, long, spider-like fingers unfolding to stroke the leaves, so...softly.</p><p>As Dave watched, something began to happen. The trees gnarled trunk straightened up a little, it's leaves shook like there was a breeze, even though the night air was still. And, as he stared in amazement, a single apple grew under the creature's hand.</p><p>It was the most beautiful fruit Dave had ever seen. Round and shiny, with no spots or blemishes, and red. A deep red, like blood, or raw meat. His stomach growled, desperate for something to satisfy his hunger.</p><p>The being toyed with the leaves and the branches of the tree for a while while Dave stood there agog. Magic. It was magic, this was completely not real, he'd fallen asleep on the path, or Bro had knocked him out or something..</p><p>The sound like the echo through a hollow log sounded, hanging in the air like the strangest notes to a song, and fingers curled around the bright fruit. Dave wasn't sure, but the being's face..twitched as it gripped, and pulled, apple coming off the limb with a clean snap. </p><p>It looked like it hurt. </p><p>A few more sounds that made Dave's skin crawl from the inside out how the feeling of sorry clawed at the edges of his mind, and a large hand was holding it out to him. Perfect in all it's raw, welcoming reprieve from the pain.</p><p>Before he realized he was doing it, Dave had already taken the apple at bit into it. The fruit was sweet and crunchy, and as soon as the flavour his his tongue he was devouring it. In only a few moments the whole thing was gone, from skin to seeds. He made a sound that was almost a moan of relief, and looked back at the creature.</p><p>"Thank you."</p><p>The being nods. A feeling of hush, and..a soon to be ending reaches Dave's mind. The shed looms, and the house sits in the shadows like a demon crouched on a hill. In the pooling golden light of the being's eyes, Dave..thinks, isn't sure, but thinks he can see a bit of a smile. </p><p>A hand is reached out, huge and long, and rearranges locks of Dave's hair so they don't sit as such wild angles, patting dirt out of the blond strands. </p><p>It looks towards the door to the shed..and Dave follows its eyes as they linger at the pile of cut wood peering out from under the canvas tarp. </p><p>Bro keeps the ax in the house. This is the first night Dave thinks he's glad of it.</p><p>"I need to go now. Thank you for your help."</p><p>He steps away, backing towards the door slowly but deliberately. If this thing follows him, he doesn't want it to catch him by surprise.</p><p>It watches him retreat with those same, big warm eyes. At his thanks, it nods once more. It eyes the apple tree critically before making a huffing, c r ee ki ng sound, like a green branch being bent too far, and turns towards the woods. </p><p>Dave's breath catches as it stands. It's like watching a felled tree suddenly grow legs and swoop back into standing tall again - and even with the knowledge it wasn't going to hurt him, it was still startling enough for him to press himself back into the door as it rose. </p><p>The creature reached down one last time to touch a finger to his lips, a surprisingly human shake of it's head, and the eyes flickering at the dark house. </p><p>Dave understood. </p><p>Not like anyone would believe him anyway. </p><p>And with the shifting of clouds over the moon and nary a whisper of a sound, it was gone. Jut another tree at the yardline, then fading into the woods. Dave watched the amber glow of it's gaze wink out of sight, and stared at the place it had been for a long time.</p><p>Once he was sure the creature was gone, he slipped into the shed. It was marginally warmer inside, the smell of hay and horsehair familiar and comforting. Maplehoof nickered at him from her stall, and leaned down so he could pet her nose. He did, enjoying the velvet texture under his fingertips. He rested his head against her forehead.</p><p>"I think I saw a fairy, how weird is that girl?" She shook her mane and he smiled. "Yeah, you're right. Sounds crazy. I'll see you in the morning."</p><p>He stepped away from the mare and sat down on a makeshift cot. Best to sleep it off and deal with understanding whatever that was in the morning. He laid down and his eyes slipped closed.</p><p>One would figure after the excitement of the night previous, Dave's sleep would be instantaneous and uninterrupted. He was plenty tired, that was for sure - his limbs felt like noodles and his chest ached from all the running still. His lip hurt too, where he accidentally bit it after falling. </p><p>It was a long time before he slipped into the realm of haze, and never seemed to find the path to sleep for long enough to see it through. He heard a voice, and would startle awake maybe expecting to see the giant fairy, but never did. He was still so hungry, and even the half-sleep he managed couldn't drown that out, the apple feeling like a stone now, heavy, pulling him down, and finally, blackness, unconsciousness, blissful unknowing.</p>
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